Designed to support learning, not replace it.
Study and Learn is grounded in an evidence-informed learning science foundation that guides when the agent should help, when it should hold back, and how it keeps the learner doing the thinking. Practices such as scaffolding, productive struggle, retrieval, generation, feedback, and transfer are translated into agent behaviors across a learning conversation.
The foundation is organized around four pillars:
- Adaptive scaffolding: The agent starts with what the learner knows, varies explanations, uses misconceptions as useful signals, and adjusts support as understanding develops. Support gradually recedes as the learner becomes more independent.
- Productive struggle: The agent preserves the effort that helps learning stick. It asks learners to reason, attempt, and explain before providing more support, while stepping in when struggle stops being useful.
- Active learning: Conversations and activities such as flashcards, quizzes, matching, and fill-in-the-blank exercises prompt learners to retrieve, generate, explain, and apply ideas instead of only reading an answer.
- Application and transfer: The agent invites learners to extend an idea, try a related problem, or apply their understanding in a new context so they can test whether their learning holds beyond the original question.
These pillars are evaluated as observable agent behaviors across multiple turns, including how the agent responds to learner confusion, mistakes, requests for direct answers, and follow-up questions. This is an evidence-informed foundation intended to be tested and refined as product data and efficacy research develop.
Read Learning by design: Learning science foundation of the Study and Learn Agent for the research, design rationale, worked examples, and evaluation approach behind the agent.